Acholi, Madi leaders must resolve Apaa land fights

What you need to know:

  • The issue: Appa land crisis
  • Our view: This also demands that the two negotiating teams from Amuru and Adjumani should cast aside self-interests and sit together and resolve in their common best interests once and for all, this contentious issue of the Apaa land.

It is heartbreaking that nine years later, there are still reports of more violent clashes, more villagers being kidnapped and more huts being burnt down in the disputed 40-square kilometre Apaa land.

It is also unacceptable that the feuding communities should still be charging at each other armed with machetes, spears, bows and arrows. These mindless and savage fights as reported in Daily Monitor on Tuesday come amid lengthy, but so far unsuccessful government efforts to mediate an end to the conflict.

We now propose that it is high time the leaders and people of Madi and Acholi brought to an end the costly conflict over Apaa. It is unacceptable that this conflict between Adjumani and Amuru districts on the one hand and the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) on the other hand, should drag on from 2010 and still spill into 2019.

The Acholi and the Madi have lived in harmony for ages. Besides, both Adjumani and Amuru’s districts’ administrative and political boundaries have each of their ethnic groups living either as minorities or majority on either side of the border.

This is why as brethren, the Acholi and Madi, who have intermarried and have lived peacefully for ages, should now rise above their petty divisions.

The two communities should work to stop any repeat of what the Law Refugee Project reported as deadly clashes among themselves, the burning down on July 17, 2010, of at least 170 huts by UWA rangers in Apaa village, and the violent eviction on February 13, 2012, and again on March 12, 2012, by UWA rangers, police and the military.

This is why we say it should be now that representatives of the two communities with close fraternal ties should work urgently on resolving the land dispute. The cultural and political leaders of both the Madi and the Acholi should rediscover themselves and take responsibility to champion their two communities’ collective well-being.

This also demands that the two negotiating teams from Amuru and Adjumani should cast aside self-interests and sit together and resolve in their common best interests once and for all, this contentious issue of the Apaa land.

For how many more years should the two communities, their cultural and political leaders work in disharmony as their people kill themselves and also suffer forceful eviction, torture, and death and destruction of property and livelihoods?

The two communities need peace and their leaders should dialogue to end the Apaa land conflict.